The Library Came to Them

A library that had to travel

The regional library itself began with borrowed books. In 1944, Edith Foster became the first director of the Carroll-Heard Regional Library, housed in the basement of Sanford Hall at West Georgia College. Its thousand-book starting collection came from the state’s education department. Books reached readers through schools, stores and small local deposits. [2]

Haralson County joined in 1946, and the institution became West Georgia Regional Library. Foster’s early bookmobile was a Ford station wagon. A library could have a headquarters in Carrollton and still need wheels to be useful to people elsewhere. [2]

Distance was only one barrier. Segregation shaped who could use which library. Foster worked with a committee of Black and white residents, chaired by businessman Crogman Mullins Sr., to establish the King Street branch in Carrollton. [2]

From New York to a Georgia road

Help came through Delta Sigma Theta, the historically Black sorority. In a later American Library Association interview, sorority leaders described the work of New York librarian Maude Watkins and members who raised money for a vehicle and books. A fundraising celebration at Tavern on the Green included Broadway performers. The distance between that New York gathering and a rural Georgia book stop was considerable; the money made a connection between them. [3]

The surviving presentation program is dated July 23, 1950. It names Carroll, Heard and Haralson as the initial counties to be served. Virginia L. Jones of Atlanta University’s library school presided; Ruth P. Scott, president of the sorority’s Iota Sigma chapter, presented the gift. [1]

The program proposed regular stops with a trained librarian and continued support to replenish the books. Buying the vehicle was a beginning. [1]

By October, Georgia Libraries News Bulletin reported that the service for Black readers had started. The sorority had supplied both the bookmobile and new books. That short contemporary notice carries the story beyond a ceremony: the project was operating. [4]

LeRoy Childs behind the wheel

LeRoy Childs came to this work through teaching. After college, he and his wife, Vivian, moved from North Carolina to teach children of sharecroppers in Bowdon. Their first classroom was a barn. In 1951, Foster recruited him to run King Street and its bookmobile. The branch opened to the public on two afternoons each week; serving rural readers also meant getting out on the road. [6]

Childs described the vehicle in his own 1960 thesis: shelves on both sides, linoleum underfoot, room for about eight visitors, and no checkout desk. The rear doors carried two plain words: “Free Library.” [5]

By 1958, the route reached nine schools across five counties each month. Schools kept deposits of books for later borrowing. Six additional stops, all in Carroll County, coincided with home demonstration club meetings in residents’ homes; neighbors could borrow there too. [5]

Douglas and Paulding had joined the regional system as it expanded. [2]

In October 1958, the state library bulletin announced a new green-and-white bookmobile, joining two vehicles already in service. More books could travel through the five-county region. This was a fleet serving different needs, rather than a single famous bus. [7]

An envelope to a daughter in Ohio

Childs’s work extended beyond lending. He brought organizations such as the Red Cross and the public health department into the library’s adult education work. For veterans learning agriculture, he worked with an instructor to find reading materials suited to their needs. A useful library had to pay attention to what its neighbors were trying to do. [6]

King Street closed with library desegregation in 1967, and the Neva Lomason library became the location for all Carrollton residents. Childs continued in regional leadership and eventually became the system’s director. [6] [8]

His 1960 thesis preserves smaller achievements alongside the institutional history. Adults wanted help with family correspondence, household money and their children’s schoolwork. Childs recorded that one Bowdon participant addressed an envelope to her daughter in Ohio for the first time. Another wrote and cashed a first check. [5]

The account does not name either reader. It leaves us with the things they could now do: send that envelope, handle that check, carry a new skill home. [5]

Sources and further reading

Sources reviewed October 28, 2026.

1. Delta Sigma Theta bookmobile presentation program, July 23, 1950
   Original five-page packet inspected. Pages 1–3 distinguish proposed equipment and service from completed operations. Virginia Lacy Jones Papers, Atlanta University Center. Copyrighted; linked for examination.
2. West Georgia Regional Library System, institutional history, revised September 2018
   Page 1 supports the system’s beginnings and committee. Its approximate donation date is superseded by the original program.
3. American Library Association, interview on Delta Sigma Theta’s bookmobile project, 2017
   Monica White and Denise Glaudé describe the New York fundraising. A retrospective interview, rather than a contemporary account.
4. Georgia Libraries News Bulletin, October 1950, volume 6, number 1
   Printed page 7, PDF page 21 in the bound volume: contemporary confirmation of operation. The state demonstration vehicle described nearby was a different bookmobile.
5. LeRoy Carter Childs, A Study of Adult Education Activities in the King Street Branch Library of Carrollton, Georgia, 1960
   Printed pp. 23–25 and 54; title page, August 1960. Original inspected.
6. Georgia Public Library Service, Library News, Winter 2020
   Pages 6–8: biography, adult education, integration and colleagues’ recollections.
7. Georgia Libraries News Bulletin, October 1958, volume 14, number 1
   Printed page 11, PDF page 109: new green-and-white vehicle. The notice does not assign it to Childs or identify its route.
8. Georgia Public Library Service, LeRoy Childs lifetime achievement award announcement, 2019
   Documents his progression from branch librarian to regional leadership.